


bathed in light

by Roselightfairy



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Abusive Relationships, F/F, Families of Choice, Gen, Memory Alteration, Tara deserves better in every way, abusive families
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 07:03:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13993002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy
Summary: ". . . but she's really nice."Kindness is underrated, and so is she. A series of moments in the life of Tara Maclay.





	1. Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> ...right. I'm also in this fandom.
> 
> Seriously, Tara is one of the most underappreciated characters ever, and she's also one of my favorites. She fascinates me. I'm in and out of this fandom, but I found a bunch of little oneshots I'd written about her stagnating in my documents, and I decided to post them. I'm sure I'll post more eventually, but for now, here are a few.

The best present Tara got for her eighteenth birthday was an excuse to take over the chore of picking up the mail.

The day before her birthday, Donny banged into the kitchen as usual, so loudly that the door slammed against the wall.  What was unusual was the bellow of, “Tara!  Letter for you!”

She flinched in her bedroom and hurriedly stashed her books under her mattress, hurrying downstairs before he could come up to her room.  “A l-letter?” she asked, for once grateful for the cover her stutter would provide – keeping him from hearing the real nervousness in her voice.  They wouldn’t have replied yet, right?  It had only been a few days –

Donny tossed it at her – unopened, she was relieved to see, though she wouldn’t have put it past him.  The address was handwritten, which was good – “Oh, from Grandma!”  They hadn’t seen that side of the family since Mom had passed away, and they felt increasingly far away.  It was nice to have this tangible reminder of their existence – of some people, some kind of family, that wasn’t Dad and Donny.  “It must be a b-birthday card.”

“Great,” grumbled Donny.  “You’re _welcome_ , by the way.”

“Thank you,” she said.  “For bringing it to me.”

An idea flashed in her head, and before she could even start leading Donny in that direction, he took her there himself.  “Thank you for bringing it to me,” he mocked, in a high voice.  “Like I’m a delivery boy or something.”

“Y-you don’t have to be,” ventured Tara, and prayed internally to every goddess she could think of that this would work.  “I could get the mail instead, if you want.”

“Sure,” said Donny immediately; then, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.  “Wait, you mean like tomorrow?”

“W-well” – She fumbled.  “I could – I mean, I might get more b-birthday cards, and I w-wouldn’t want you to” –

“Yeah,” Donny said, “I don’t want to, either.”

“Look, I’ll just” – She couldn’t tell what kind of effect she was having; she prayed harder that she wasn’t messing everything up – “I can just do it from now on, Donny.  I d-don’t mind, really, and then you don’t have to” –

“This isn’t a trick, right?” He stared hard at her.  “You’re not going to make me trade for some girly chore, are you?”

“No,” she promised.  _Please, please, please, please_ – “I’ll do it for free.”

He kept his eyes on her for another moment, and then he shrugged.  “Cool,” he said.  “Just don’t forget, now.”

“I won’t,” Tara said.  “Promise.”

“Okay then.”  Donny turned away from her with a shrug and ambled away towards the refrigerator, looking for something to eat.  Tara held her breath until she was certain he was completely distracted, and then she turned and practically flew up the stairs to her room.

She tossed the birthday card on her desk – she’d read it later – and collapsed on her bed, letting out a breath so long and full it felt like enough to play an entire aria.  She offered up thanks to her grandmother, all the goddesses she’d prayed to earlier, and the spirit of her mother, just for good measure.

Then she reached under her mattress and pulled the college pamphlets out again.


	2. Hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a hole in her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place directly after "Once More with Feeling," and references memory modification and many different kinds of abusive relationships.

A hole.

Tara skimmed her fingers over the back of her hair, as though feeling for it, although she knew there was nothing there to find.  Stared into the mirror, as though to look for the missing memories somewhere in the depths of her own eyes.

There was a hole in her head, where thoughts and will had been stolen from her, a hole in her head patched so well over that only by luck did she even know it existed.

Her entire mind had been turned into a hole once: a dark, gaping abyss where memory and thought and decision had been before.  A hole so deep and dark that she’d thought she would be lost in it forever.

Willow had found her, then.  Found her in just enough time to start carving her up again, taking out the memories she didn’t want in there, making her into a Willow-approved version of Tara.

There was a hole in her head, and for all she knew there could be more.

Willow appeared behind her in the mirror.  “Hey, baby,” she said quietly.  “Headache?”

 _The opposite,_ thought Tara – a headache would have been better, would have been a sign that there was something missing.  She would rather have a hole there and know that it existed, rather than the perfect patch job that kept her from ever finding the memory that had been stolen.  But aloud she just said, “Yeah.”  Headaches _were_ a tried-and-true excuse, weren’t they?

Willow reached out to put her hands on top of Tara’s, rubbing gently.  “Want me to give you a head massage? Or – I know a spell” –

It was all Tara could to do stop herself from physically cringing away.  “No thanks,” she said, too fast.  Would Willow think she had caught on to the memory spell?  So what if she did?  Tara was planning to confront her about it anyway.  But no.  She was too tired – they were all too tired – to do this now, and she and Willow needed to at least keep it together until tomorrow.  They had planned an emergency meeting with Xander and Anya to talk about the shocking, horrifying revelations of tonight.  Buffy hadn’t come home yet, and Tara didn’t think anyone was really ready to face her anyway.

“You sure?” asked Willow, and how had Tara not noticed her penchant to push?  It was as though the knowledge of this hole that she still couldn’t find was opening her eyes wider.  Dawn had told her she had argued with Willow about using too much magic, and while she couldn’t remember the argument, she wasn’t surprised to hear that they had had it.  Willow might have erased the memory of the confrontation, but she hadn’t taken away the string of misgivings that had led up to it.

“Yeah,” Tara said quietly.  “I just want to sleep tonight.  After everything with Buffy – we’re going to need clear heads to figure it out tomorrow.”  Clear heads, with minds and memories intact.

That did it, as she had selfishly hoped it would.  Willow shut down and turned away, nodding silently in the way that Tara knew meant tears were on the way.  Half of her yearned to comfort Willow, while at the same time she couldn’t bear to be around her any longer.

She supposed she was a hypocrite, when the way they had violated Buffy was probably the worst thing you could do to someone, far worse than what had been done to her.  But she needed to take tonight to focus on herself.

She followed Willow into the bedroom, and Goddess, they were going to have to sleep together tonight, share the bed.  It wasn’t like Tara could sleep on the couch, not when Dawn or Buffy could wake up to find out that the two of them were having problems.  As if anyone needed even more instability right now –

This was so the wrong time for this, but she knew there was no way she could stay.  Not after what had happened – not when she knew it could happen again, with her none the wiser.

She lay down with her back to Willow, and it felt wrong and uncomfortable to be facing the other direction.  But she couldn’t bear to snuggle up to her tonight, couldn’t bear to project a false front of things being okay.  She was already lying enough by omission.

Willow’s breath was unsteady; Tara could hear her crying quietly, but she couldn’t move to touch her, to comfort her.  Not when she knew that what had been done to Buffy was similar to what had been done to her, not when she was frozen in position by her own shock, horror, disgust –

“We messed up, Tara,” Willow whispered to her.  “What do we do?”

What a good question.  “Go to sleep,” Tara replied simply.  “There’s nothing more we can do tonight.  We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

Willow sniffed.  “Okay.”  Her breath hitched.  “Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Tara whispered back.

That, at least, was not a lie.  She loved Willow still with every cell in her body; that love mixed with horror and betrayal dragged so hard on every part of her being.  Everything she had said today – everything she had _sung_ – was the absolute truth.

Faster than seemed possible, with what could only be the speed of pure exhaustion, Willow’s breath slowed into sleep; one of her hands came to rest on Tara’s side.  It felt limp and heavy, like the death of their relationship was lying there, pressing down on Tara’s waist, keeping her breathing shallow, keeping her pinned to the bed.  Claustrophobia seized her and she felt herself starting to hyperventilate, felt panic starting to rise up in her stomach and choke its way into her throat.  She couldn’t do this now, couldn’t let Willow wake up, but she couldn’t stay here, couldn’t lie in the bed with Willow touching her –

Quietly as she could, pushing down the lump in her throat hard so she wouldn’t move too quickly and jolt them, she slid out from under Willow’s hand and out of bed; forced herself to tiptoe out of the room instead of running.  Locked herself in the bathroom, collapsed against the door, and slid down to the floor.

She couldn’t deal with all of this tonight, but she couldn’t just let it be, either; had to figure out what she was feeling, for her own peace of mind.  Couldn’t let the panic overwhelm her.  She drifted into that calm meditative space in the back of her mind, forcing her breathing to stay even, trying to keep her thoughts in control.

If it hadn’t been for the music, she might have been able to forget it.  Might have been tempted to swallow down the hurt and fear, the feelings of wrongness, and taken refuge in Willow, just as she had been doing for two years now.  She could have pushed everything away, and pretended the truth wasn’t so clear.

But she had been forced to sing, and everything she had sung had been completely honest – her emotions perfectly molded into words.  Now she had to sort through them.

 _I’m under your spell_ , she had sung, before she had known that she was.  _How else can it be, anyone would notice me?_

She was filled with Willow; she had always known that.  She would never have been able to stand up to her family, embrace her own humanity, if not for Willow’s support and love.  Tara had never believed in herself, but Willow had done it for her.

If she left now, who would she be?

It was a terrifying thought, one almost scarier than the knowledge of what had been done to her.  Almost enough to make her forget it, and it would have been if not for the second song.

 _Wish I could stay_ , she had sung, because she knew, deep down, that she could not.  A knowing that came from somewhere other than the mind she could no longer trust, a knowing that came from the tiny part of her that had already been full before Willow had poured herself in.  A knowing that came from the part of her that was, still and always, _Tara_.

That tiny part of her would have to get a lot bigger in the coming days.

She would hold it together for tomorrow, she decided.  Buffy had to be the priority – figuring out how they could help her, how they could make up for what they had done.  She would go with Willow to the meeting, put this problem on hold just for the moment.  But after they had talked – she would explain.  She would tell Willow that she knew, and she would leave.

She would leave, because for all that she’d thought the best parts of her were those made of Willow, she knew that she could no longer live a life that wasn’t her own.  She’d spent enough years suppressing herself, had her mind violated in enough different ways, to finally convince her.  She would leave because it was finally time to stop suppressing the parts of her that were herself, time to instead give them space to grow.  Time to stop belonging to someone else, but to be, fully and really, Tara.

And she might not know yet exactly what being Tara meant, but it was time to find out.


	3. Remind Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tara makes the decision to leave Willow . . . but she needs some insurance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one takes place right after "Tabula Rasa," and again references coercion and memory manipulation.

It was the memories of her family that came back first, all in a rush so powerful it almost overwhelmed her.  They came back too fast for her to really react, to feel the full extent of the fear, but there were so many of them, all on top of the other, that it was enough she felt like she was being crushed underneath them.

But then they were all lifted by the memories of Willow: the joy of finding another person like her, the easy kinship of magic through interlocking fingers, the warmth and safety.  That was the real weight on top of her, but it felt like nothing; she could only look at Willow with awe and love and gratitude –

And then.

The hole.

It wasn’t fixed!  The memories were gone, still gone, and she remembered knowing that they were gone, wondering how many of them were gone, and she was still wondering, only now she knew that so many more could have been gone, too. Willow-approved Tara she was, would have been even more, only what then?  How much had Willow been planning to take from her this time – from her and everyone else?  How had she tried to remold the entire world into a Willow-approved version, to take away the bits that were inconvenient for her, to strip everyone else of their will, leaving her – leaving Will – the only one with any control –

Bile surged up in her throat; she pushed it down and her hand, which had been resting on Willow’s face, moved to her shoulder.  Willow knew: her face had turned stricken above Tara; she backed up, scrambled off, removed herself before Tara could ask because Tara could hardly stand to touch her.

Xander and Dawn were standing together, looking at them, looking at Willow, and all of the memory Tara had was back now, and somewhere far away Buffy was fighting vampires and remembering, too –

Tara pulled herself to her feet.  Willow only had eyes for her, and the horror on her face twisted Tara’s stomach because she knew now that the horror was not at what she had done.  It was only because they knew she had done it.

Xander and Dawn stood, too, looking down at the crystal; they all knew, and they all stood over Willow.  Crumpled in a sitting position, she looked powerless, beneath all of them, but now they knew that she was the most powerful of all, that she could have been the puppetmaster pulling all the strings –

Slowly, the others turned to leave.  Xander and Dawn first, heading for the stairs as Willow rose slowly to her feet.

She stood before Tara, tried to meet her eyes but Tara couldn’t, couldn’t suppress the revulsion that filled her at Willow’s presence, and then the crushing sadness that that had once been love, had once been impossible attraction.  With no memory, she had been drawn to Willow, and with one she could not bear to be near her.

Willow opened her mouth as if to speak, and closed it again.  There was nothing to say, and they both knew it.

Back in the shop, conversation was minimal.  Giles and Anya were both furiously scrubbing things down when they came up, but it wasn’t like anyone could ask – or wanted to.  Willow left first, looking back at Tara, but she couldn’t even meet her eyes.

Dawn followed Willow to the door, then looked back at Tara as though waiting for her to come, but Tara had something to do first.

“Go with Willow, Dawn,” she said, voice cracking.  She hated to do what she was about to do, to leave Dawn alone with a person she could no longer trust, but she had no other options.  “I’ll be right behind you.  I just need to do something first.”

Dawn just shrugged sadly and followed Willow out of the store.  Her resigned face broke Tara’s heart; she wished she weren’t about to hurt Dawn like this – but it was the only way.

“Xander,” she said quietly.  “Anya.  Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Xander took one look at her face and nodded.  He tapped Anya on the shoulder and she looked up at him indignantly for a moment, but abandoned her scrubbing and followed him and Tara just outside the door to the shop.

Tara waited for a moment, watching until Willow’s back had disappeared into the distance, before she spoke.

“I’m leaving Willow,” she said.  No need to mince words; everyone would know soon enough.  But Giles was leaving, and she couldn’t place this responsibility on Buffy or Dawn – the two of them were suffering enough as it was.  These two were her only option.  “And I need you two to know that.”

Neither of them looked particularly surprised, which was its own kind of heartbreaking.  Xander just nodded slowly and said, “Have you told Willow yet?”

“No.”  Tara had to pause and breathe deeply through the sob trying to rise.  “I need you to know first, because – because” – She pressed her hand to her mouth for a moment, and when she spoke, it was with the stutter that had mostly been eliminated around the Scooby gang.  “B-because if I change my mind tomorrow m-morning, I need you to remind me.”

“Why would you” – Anya started, and Tara braced herself for questions or blunt statements that she really couldn’t handle hearing now, but instead Anya just said, “Oh,” and her mouth fell closed again.  No questions, because she didn’t need to ask them – and wasn’t that thought awful enough in itself?

“Yeah,” Tara managed to croak.  How many holes in her head now?  How many more to come, if she didn’t leave now?

Xander looked at her with an expression of such deep sympathy that Tara had the sudden wild urge to fling herself into his arms and sob into his chest.  “Okay,” he said, and her relief at their not pushing further was so sudden and intense that she gave a full-body shiver.  “Yeah, we can do that.”

“Th-thank you,” she sniffed, closing her eyes as the tears she’d been holding back spilled over again. Before she could reach up to wipe her eyes, Xander had enfolded her in a warm hug.  His embrace was wide and solid and gentle, and for just a moment, she actually felt comforted.  She could have stayed there for a long time, especially knowing what was to come when she let him go.

When they separated, Anya gave her a hug, too – a quicker embrace, but her own brand of comfort and sympathy.  Tara hadn’t been so grateful for their friendship since the night her father had come to town, over a year ago.  It gave her enough strength to straighten up, wipe her eyes, and turn to walk away.

“Good luck,” Anya called thinly after her, but Xander’s hand fell on her shoulder, stopping her before she could leave.

“Tara,” he said, when she turned around to face him again.  His voice was shaky, but calm.  “If you need a place to crash for the night, you can stay at our apartment.”

Tara waited for Anya’s protest – she never liked sharing her space – but she remained silent, even nodding along.  And another wave of gratitude swept through Tara, because she could not have borne one more night in bed with Willow, and she had nowhere else to go.

“Thank you,” she repeated, her voice steady this time.  Glad to know that she was not as alone as she had expected to be, that she would not be losing her only friends along with her love.  “I appreciate it.”

And then she turned around for real and prepared to leave for the house that would no longer be her home.


End file.
